Valley Active Shooter Exercise - 2013

Before

Scenario• A series of gunshots occur in the west end of the Spokane Valley

Mall. People are screaming and mass chaos erupts. One armed individual is seen entering the arcade door. Mall Security observes the armed individual inside the arcade and begins evacuating patrons away from the threat. The individual fires a shot and flees into the Mall’s lower level. Mall Security calls 911 and reports the shooting with multiple victims. Upon law enforcement’s arrival they attempt to isolate, contain or eliminate the threat. Immediately upon encountering the first shooter a second gunman opens fire from the upper level. Law enforcement advances on second shooter, who then takes hostage(s) and is contained in an office in the west end of Mall’s upper level. SWAT and negotiators are requested to resolve the barricaded hostage situation.

Scenario Event, Simulated Player Inject, Player

ActionEvent/Action

0200 Scenario Event/Sim Player Inject STARTEX. Sim call to Dispatch

0210 Player Action First shooter neutralized

0213 Player Action Fire Dispatch discussion on DMCC notification

0215 Player Action Police carry patient out

0222 Player Action DMCC contacts hospitals via HEAR system

0222 Player Action Police carry another patient out

0225 Player Action DMCC alerts hospitals via WATrac with update

0225 Player Action First ambulances arrive on scene

0226 Player Action First fire crew in building

0228 Inject SO Dispatch notifies SO/PIO of media influx

0228 Player Action Triage areas set up on scene

0235 Sim Player Inject Sim page of DEM for MCV & MRC

0236 Player Action First fire evacuation and reds begin to come out of building

0245 Improvisation Fleeing attendees sent back into Mall to test security

0247 Sim Player Inject Sim STA bus requested by Fire Dispatch

0255 Inject ME office paged

0300 Player Action Second shooter terminated/hostages released

0315 Player Action SWAT stands down along with SO and Fire Dispatch

0321 Player Action Last patient transported from scene

0321-0430 Player Action Hospital play continued until approximately 0430

0324 Scenario Event ENDEX

During

Participating Agencies• American Medical Response (AMR)• American Red Cross• Cheney Fire Department• City of Airway Heights • Colfax Fire Department• Combined Communications Center• Deaconess Medical Center• Deer Park Ambulance• Department of Homeland Security • Emergency Medical Services• Fairchild Air Force Base (FAFB)• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)• Holy Family Medical Center• Kootenai Fire & Rescue• Medical Examiner’s Office• Medical Reserve Corps (MRC)• Newman Lake Fire Department• Northtown Mall • Panhandle Health District• Pullman Fire Department• Pullman Police Department• Region 9 Health Care Coalition Partners

• Sacred Heart Medical Center• Saint Luke’s Rehabilitation Center• Salvation Army• Sheriff Community Oriented Policing Effort (SCOPE) • Sheriff’s Incident Response Team (SIRT)• Sheriff’s Office Dispatch• Spokane County Fire District 13• Spokane County Fire District 4 • Spokane County Fire District 8• Spokane Department of Emergency Management

(DEM)• Spokane Fire Department• Spokane Regional Health District• Spokane Sheriff’s Office/SVPD• Spokane Valley Fire Department• Spokane Valley Mall Operations• Spokane Valley Mall Security• Valley Hospital and Medical Center• Valor Corporate Security• Washington Air National Guard• Washington State Department of Health• Washington State Patrol• Washington State University; College of Pharmacy

Players and Participants

• Total – approximately 420• 16 Controllers• 36 Evaluators• 19 Observers• 4 Moulage

• 184 victims (red, yellow, or green)

After

Major Strengths• The major strengths identified during this exercise are as follows:• Successful collaboration with multi-discipline participation;

established or strengthened existing relationships.• Quick and successful establishment of triage area for incoming

resources and patients. • Objectives focused on integration and participation for multiple

disciplines• Impressive site location; outstanding support from Spokane Valley

Mall Security and Operations throughout exercise design process. • Great experience and knowledge imparted by

controller/evaluators throughout event.

Areas for Improvement• Establishment of Unified Command early in the incident.

– Enables clear goals and objectives from inception of incident.• Patients need to be advised on their respective symptoms and expected actions

and the associated behaviors they should exhibit.– Ensure patients have vitals, injuries on symptomology cards

• Need strong leadership and community support/buy-in from inception to completion of exercise.

• Need commitment from exercise design participants throughout process. – Need for a common understanding of nomenclature and terminology between all

responders and exercise design planners. • Separate Incident Command for exercise design and real world events; provide

better training and education to exercise design team.• Develop Exercise Design guide to better prepare design team with exercise

development. Use of new Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) criteria.

• Better patient tracking procedures from treatment/triage to hospital/discharge.

Where we are now…• Spokane County EMS and Trauma Care Council are

working to change protocols for transport of “red” patients more quickly.

• Also discussing combat medics to give early treatment and triage.

• Unified Command being examined for additional training and exercising.

• Quick access to patients (safe corridor) being looked at for exercise.

• Exercise design lessons learned will be passed on to EMOG